2 Meter Slot Antenna
A quarter wave antenna is sometimes used because it's shorter than a full wave antenna.
A quarter wave works better than a random wave antenna because of harmonics, I think that's the right word. You get less SWR (google it) using a quarter wave than you would with a 3/16 or a 5/16 wave antenna.
THe feed line does not enter into the calculation if it is shielded wire or a balance line. If you just feed the antenna with a hunk of wire then all of the wire not becomes an antenna and all of your design and math goes out the window, but less of your signal goes out of your antenna.
An antenna is able to receive a signal of any frequency. But frequencies that are multibles of dividibles of the antenna length are recieved much more stronger than those that are at odds with the math.
The cubical quad antenna lends itself to use at VHF and UHF, and a 2 metre quad or two meter quad is easy to make using a few items that are easy to obtain or may even be available anyway. It should be remembered when considering its use that the quad, when fed at the bottom gives horizontal polarisation.
2 Meter Cube Slot Antenna
2 Meter Slot Cube Antenna
2 Meter Slot Antenna
- Picture 2: measurement setup Operating with a power between 2 and 50W (the factory output of my Icom IC7000), and taking advantage of the contest organized during the summer, when the propagation is good on these upper bands, I was able to perform some QSO in order to characterize my antenna system.
- This month I decided to build a 2 meter 5/4 wave antenna. This antenna is unique in that it is enclosed entirely in 3/4' PVC which makes the design a little more.